


Six Hundred Years of Bad Luck

by ignipes



Category: Supernatural
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-06-15
Updated: 2006-06-15
Packaged: 2017-10-07 19:42:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 794
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/68520
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ignipes/pseuds/ignipes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nightmares and bad luck follow the boys down the road.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Six Hundred Years of Bad Luck

The nightmares don't stop.

~

At the first gas station they stop at after leaving Toledo, Dean slams his hand in the car door so hard two of his fingernails turn purple and he bitches non-stop for the next hundred miles.

~

It's a house of mirrors.

A funhouse. One of those mazes they set up in double-wide trailers, hauled from fairground to fairground along with the two-headed calf and the bearded lady.

There are no flames.

~

When Sam flips on the light in the motel room, the bulb flashes and blinks out. The same thing happens with the lamp on the nightstand, and again in the bathroom.

"Dude." Dean is silhouetted in the doorway, the setting sun at his back. "Stop breaking the lights."

~

All of the glass is warped and wavy, distorting his face beyond recognition. In the infinite, overlapping reflections, nothing is whole. He can see only pieces and fragments: slices of hands, shards of face, slivers of blonde hair and white silk, red lips and red droplets.

~

While Dean is brushing his teeth, the mirror falls off the bathroom wall and shatters when it hits the faucet.

~

He moves slowly, his hands stretched before him, but he only takes two steps before his fingers encounter cold glass.

He turns, tries another direction, encounters glass again.

And again.

And again.

~

When Sam takes off his shoes, he puts one foot down on an upturned thumbtack. There is only one limp pillow for the two beds. Dean gets a splinter in his shoulder leaning in the bathroom doorway. There's a fire station across the street and it's Friday night. The remote doesn't have any batteries in it.

~

He's trapped.

The walls are a kaleidoscope of shifting reflections, but there is no way out. He begins to pound on the mirrors, shouting for help, but his voice is muffled and his hands are sluggish, dragging as though there are weights attached to them.

As he shouts louder and hits harder, the shards of broken glass shift and change. They melt, fitting together like a puzzle, and the reflections grow.

_Sam._

The whisper freezes him, stays his hands.

~

"Coincidence."

"I don't know, man. This is weird."

"_Coincidence_. It's just an old superstition."

"Just an old superstition, Dean? Are you fucking kidding me? After what we just--"

"Yeah, okay. Point. But still, I think we're just, you know, klutzy. Jittery."

"That's putting it mildly."

"I'm telling you, it's nerves. That's all."

~

_Sam._

He whirls around, turning and twisting, grasping, his fingers sliding down the cool, slick glass.

Her legs are on one side, her arms on another. Her fingers are splintered on long thin shards. Her face is sheared in half.

And her lips, perfect and red, her lips whisper on a jagged sliver of mirror, a thousand warm and soft mouths filling the house of mirrors with his name.

_Sam. _

_Why._

~

Sam opens his eyes, gasping for breath, his heart racing.

A second later, something jars the nightstand and the lamp falls over.

"Goddamn fucking stupid--"

Sam blinks several times and looks over at Dean. "You okay?"

"Yeah. Stupid fucking thing." Dean sits up on the other bed and rubs his forehead.

"Uh... what'd you do?"

"Hit my head on the corner."

Sam pushes himself up and stares at Dean. "How the heck d'you do that?"

"Never mind. Are _you_ okay? That was a hell of a nightmare."

Water-stained ceiling, neon lights through the window, traffic on the road outside. Fire sirens again. Ugly wallpaper. No mirrors.

"Yeah," Sam says. "I'm fine."

"Look, man, I know you don't--"

"Exactly. I don't."

"Sam--"

"Dean. Leave it."

Sam tries to fluff the pathetic little pillow, gives up, lies down, but he doesn't close his eyes right away.

After a few moments, Dean says, "Fine. Whatever. But you better not wake me up with your girly screams again."

He falls back on the bed with a huge sigh.

There is a loud crack of breaking wood.

And the bed collapses.

"I don't fucking believe it!" Scrambling to his feet, Dean untangles himself from the sheets and kicks the bed, wincing and yelping when his toe connects with the frame. "Goddamnit! This is the stupidest night _ever_. What kind of goddamned fucking cheap crappy dump--"

Sam snickers.

Dean glares at him. "It's not funny."

"Well, actually..."

"Oh, shut up."

When Dean reaches down and swipes the pillow from under Sam's head, Sam only grins into the darkness.

~

The following night, Sam dreams about fire again.

Bleary-eyed and yawning the next morning at breakfast, he reaches across the table for the salt and knocks over Dean's coffee mug.

Dean catches the mug just before it hits the table, then holds it up and turns it over.

"Empty," he says, smiling. "Lucky."


End file.
